So. Guys. There’s something that’s been going on recently, and it’s been bothering me. I’ve talked to a couple of people about it, and MOSTLY I am probably in the wrong, or at least in the minority, with my opinion, but I want to explain WHY I feel the way I feel and maybe hear from the handful of people who are on my side. Or perhaps I’m looking to be convinced by the people on the opposing side why I’m WRONG.

Now, normally when you come around here or any other blog sort of like this one where we’re big on BRINGING THE LAUGHS, this would segue into some sort of flighty, traditionally unimportant topic. This is ACTUALLY, for once, a more serious thing I’m talking about. Though not really all that serious. No life or death involved. Well, sort of both life and death, but not life OR death, which is a bit more pressing.

An article/blog post went viral recently, and the gist of it was that as mothers, we are too often told to “enjoy every moment!” and “seize the day!” by strangers, usually old ladies in the grocery store, when they see us out with our children. The general consensus seems to be that this is annoying, it’s intrusive, it’s rude, and it’s unrealistic; it is impossible to enjoy EVERY moment of motherhood. (Note: I’m not linking to that post because some things have come to light recently about the author and possible plagiarism in other pieces, so let’s just NOT go there.)

Which, truthfully, I don’t take issue with. Of course no one enjoys every moment of ANYTHING. No matter what the best day of your life was, you probably didn’t ENJOY using the toilet or that one sneezing fit or the car that cut you off in traffic. OBVIOUSLY, right?

The thing is, I can’t help but put myself behind the eyes of every person who has ever said this sort of thing to me. I instantly flash forward and imagine my children all grown and gone from the home. Maybe they’ll be married and have children, maybe they’ll all choose to remain childless, maybe they’ll struggle with infertility, maybe we will be estranged for one reason or another, or maybe I’ll just be melancholy over this part of my life being over. And then there is a woman out with her three beautiful children, in the PRIME of her life, really in the thick of things, LIVING even though every day is filled with chores and dirty diapers and screaming and tantrums and fights over the stupidest things imaginable. It will take EVERYTHING in me not to run up to her and grab her by the shoulders and tell her to HANG ON TO THESE MOMENTS, FOR THEY ARE TOO FEW.

I won’t, though! I promise.

What I am telling you here, though, is that I am in PRE-MOURNING for this part of my life. This is IT, this is what I have always wanted. It is ten million times harder than I ever imagined it would be, and it has me exhausted to my core. It has me filled with more worry than I knew I could carry. It has pushed me to my limits and beyond those limits, and I am saying this in a way I do not intend to be taken romantically. The last seven months since Leo was born? The HARDEST months of my life. OBVIOUSLY I did not cherish every bowl of oatmeal or bowl of rice and peas or bowl of ANYTHING BECAUSE THE ONLY THINGS I COULD EAT WERE SERVED IN BOWLS while watching my family eat pizzas and cakes and other assorted foods that required chewing. Of course I didn’t. And I am not insisting that any of you — any of us — should be counting your blessings every single second of your incredibly difficult days.

Just … it is HARD. It is SO SO HARD.

But, you know? I’m pretty sure all of us are going to miss some part of it. I am NOT a baby person, not at all. I cannot wait for Leo to turn one. I mean, I am practically wishing this entire year AWAY. I wouldn’t mind taking a nap from now until July 6th, thank you very much.

What got me thinking about this was a tiny little moment in the middle of the night last night. Leo got two immunizations yesterday. This was his second round with these two particular shots, and it was those shots that gave him a high (102+) fever last time. That was when we tried the HA HA corn-free acetaminophen. We were told this time that he needn’t be medicated for fever unless it got that high again, and by 10PM last night, he was at 100.9. I spent the entire night with the AC cranked and the fan on with my pitiful baby wearing a onesie beside me in the bed nursing while I kept him cooled down with a damp washcloth on his sizzling forehead. I barely slept, fretting in the dark that I’d have to give my baby medication that was sure to make him more miserable than the fever. I was MISERABLE and I HATED THE WORLD. I hated everything and everyone and I started thinking about the ladies in the grocery store with the love in their eyes telling me to cherish every moment.

Then I thought about Vio, 5 years old and down the hall in her own bed, who does not want to be touched if she is sick. Vio who had a tooth under her pillow for the tooth fairy, her second one already. And I was already that lady in the grocery store, telling MYSELF to cherish this moment, because that little girl was just this little boy. She JUST WAS. They are only a month off being exactly 5 years apart, and we find ourselves looking from one to the other in awe. Look at her! Five years ago, she was learning to sit up, and now she is READING US BOOKS! Etc. etc. etc.

I guess what I am getting at here is that I get it. I get why they do it. And it’s FINE if it bothers you when they say it to you, it’s just that I don’t think they mean it that way. Swistle wrote a great post recently about this where she talked about how we need to weigh the INTENTIONS along with the words they are saying. I wholeheartedly agree.

MY intention in writing this is not to guilt anyone who currently is NOT loving every moment. FAR FROM IT, as I hope I’ve made clear with the admission that I am most definitely not doing that myself. I have this problem, and when I tell you what it is, I’m going to sound like I’m trying to pass off a strength as a weakness or like when you answer that question about your flaws in a job interview and you say, “Oh, I’m a PERFECTIONIST,” but I promise you I am not. The thing is that I am fair to a fault. It sounds like a positive thing, but it has cost me more friends that I could possibly comment on here. Once, when confronted with the end of a friendship, I asked the question WHY? What had I done wrong? “It’s just … you’re always the bearer of bad news.” See, someone would come to me with a problem they’d had with someone else, and instead of being supportive, I would IMMEDIATELY try to see it from the other person’s side. I would put myself in BOTH sets of shoes, shoes that had no business being on my feet at all, and then WORSE, I would start in on my friend. Kindly, of course, but completely without regard for it being what the other person needed to hear. It’s something I fight like hell now that I realize how obnoxious it must be. It is something I have gotten more successful at pushing out of my head over the years, but it still creeps into my personal relationships far too often. Because I think I am being helpful! I only realize much later that it wasn’t the case at all.

That right there, now that I think about it, is the root of why I am writing this at all. I see people forming an angry mob against these (I’m assuming) well-meaning people and their well-meaning comments, and all my instincts tell me to DEFEND them and put me in their shoes. I think they’re right at the same time I think it is perfectly right to be annoyed and furious at all they have to say. I am here now living moments that drag on horribly and I am there looking back at a lifetime of moments that passed in an instant.

So, I don’t know. I DO carpe diem. I want to carpe the HELL out of all the diems I can. For me, anyway, it is so much better to be the one hearing the words “Cherish every moment” than the one speaking them.

36 responses to “Tl;dr”

Oh wow. Did you steal these thought right outta my head I totally, totally agree. (Except I am probably more of a baby person. Though, if there is a round two, I won’t be sad when he/she turns one, because this age is SO MUCH MORE FUN than infant Gabe. So much.)

I’m also fair to a fault – something that frustrates Mike to no end. I always try to see it from THEIR point of view, which can leave him feeling unsupported and such. “Can’t you just be on MY side?”

I think women who are delighting in children enough to say, “Enjoy that baby!” is a well-meaning, sweet thing. It’s like Mike’s grandparents, who claimed they never argued once in 60 years. Rose-colored glasses. 🙂

Hell, I’m already nostalgic of all of this. Of being young and having a young child and being poor and living in an apartment and getting to spend lots of time with my family. I wish I knew how to maximize every moment, so sometimes ‘Enjoy that baby’ just stresses me out, because I’m like, “HOW?! What is the best way? I’m trying to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out and I’m afraid I’m not doing all that I can to enjoy him!”

Okay, that part about Mike’s grandparents is the sweetest thing I have ever heard. I feel like some of the trouble comes in when people take the comments LITERALLY, maybe? Of course they argued in that time! We all know that, but what is important is that they don’t feel like they did or have forgotten they did because the overall experience was positive. I can see how someone in a rough patch in their marriage might take the comment in a condescending manner, but I cannot believe they would have used it in such a way, you know? And that’s how I feel about the comments about our babies growing up. I can believe they are looking to the past with rose-colored glasses or simply forgetting that there were hard times, but shouldn’t we all be so lucky? I hope the hard parts fade to dust and I’m left with nothing but the giggles and walking hand-in-hand through the park looking at Christmas lights.

My problem wish “Cherish every moment” is it always seems to involve judgment. I realize they’re really talking about themselves (“I wish I’d cherished those days more!), but it usually comes across as judgment of whomever they’re saying it to (“I’m sure there was a sweet moment this morning you DIDN’T cherish. Shame on you! You don’t get an unlimited supply, you know!”) It also implies you are stupid and have no idea kids grow up and leave and that you’ll miss them. THANKS FOR THE NEWS FLASH.

Now, I do realize they have good(ish) intentions. (I do maintain, though, that they’re not actually trying to be helpful, just selfishly nostalgic. Regardless, they THINK they’re intentions are good). So I smile and say “I do!” or “Thank you!” and don’t let on how rude I think they are.

I agree completely. I get what they mean, and what they’re saying and that its not really about me. But I also teach my children not to talk to strangers, and well, these people are strangers giving unsolicited fake advice.

Are you a Libra? Because I totally get the “seeing-both-sides” thing, and yeah, Swistle was RIGHT ON in my opinion in the weighing-intentions post.
But…
I had my own advance “cherish every moment” comment from my MIL this week where she commented (on FB) that we won’t ever feel tired with a newborn because moms never WANT to sleep because they don’t want to miss time with their babies. I laughed out-loud and got myself to Twitter where I knew people would laugh with me and exclaim variations of OMG THAT ISN’T TRUE!!! But I wonder what it would be like if I didn’t have the support of so many friends who were honest and let me know that no, it ISN’T just me who struggles (with anything – not just parenthood). If I didn’t have the great counter-balance of friends who’ve done this before me and shared their struggles and let me see that was totally normal and okay, then in late summer when I (inevitably) find myself struggling to stay awake and wishing the baby would just SLEEP ALREADY I’d probably think I was a failure and was doing it wrong because I wasn’t cherishing and loving every moment. Even those of us WITH strong support and more realistic expectations can have moments of soul-crushing doubt, and those comments play right into that (completely unintentionally).
I’ll always TRY to see it from their perspective (as I do now), but when I hit a particular moment of strong self-doubt and fear that I’m screwing it all up and failing and I just can’t cherish it at that moment – I’m totally going to read posts like that, or get myself to Twitter to rage a while and help me remember that it isn’t all soft-focus-happiness, it is hard, and I’m not doing it wrong, and it’s going to be okay again.

Anne, that is TOTALLY reasonable. I put the comment from your MIL in a completely different league, honestly. There is such a difference between the offhand, generic (and what I do not take literally as I cannot believe it is intended literally) “cherish every moment!” and “You will never want to sleep for even one second because all the seconds are AMAZING!” No. That’s … that’s emotional manipulation or an intentional dig meant to make the speaker feel superior. OR the person saying so is an amnesiac optimist.

You’re right, though, absolutely, that we do all need to understand that no one enjoys all of the moments. I think all of us have felt that way, that we weren’t appreciating it enough. Even knowing in advance how hard it would be BOTH the second and third times, I still fell flat on my face with guilt thinking I was doing it wrong, because surely it should be at least somewhat enjoyable? But it never really was. It was HARD, and there were brief moments of joy (the first smile! the first giggle! quickly turning into the 9 millionth cryfest, but still!) but they were few and far between.

What I believe pulls women out of that self-loathing is when all of us share the low points as well as the high points. My issue is not with old ladies telling me to cherish every moment, it is with people who attempt to present to the world or the internet or whatever that everything is ducky all the livelong day. THAT is what is damaging, seeing people pretend to be something unattainable. And that right there is what your MIL did to you. I’m so glad you had a place you could go that told you she was OUT OF HER MIND.

It was TOTAL emotional manipulation, but that is my MIL in a nutshell, SO. I’m good at laughing it off. (And I knew she was out of her mind before I went to Twitter, I just went there because commenting back on FB would have been a BAD idea.) But I can see how if I (or anyone) read that on one of THOSE days that it would be crushing, you know?

And OH YES, the people who pretend life is ALWAYS roses (not retrospectively, the super-superior ones who are all Mary Poppins Perfect and look down on others) are THE WORST. Coming across one of them on one of THOSE days would be so, so, SO much worse. Heck, even on a normal day they make me feel like a total loser.

In summary: I am SO THANKFUL that I have my Internet people (like you!) who share both highs AND lows and make me feel not alone. THAT I can cherish the HELL out of all the live-long day.

Oh! Another thing. I think a common feeling someone has in response to someone telling them to cherish every moment is unworthiness. It seems to imply you’re undeserving or ungrateful. As in, if *I* had those children, I’d cherish them a lot more than YOU do!

See … I just never read those intentions into it. I don’t know if you and I are getting completely different comments from completely different kinds of people or if we’re just seeing the same sort of situation two different ways. I have NEVER felt judgement, even on my worst days, when someone has said that to me. I will admit most of my comments have been along the lines of, “Enjoy every minute, they grow up too fast!” where the “they grow up too fast” is something that I can see ALREADY HAPPENING, so I am immediately sympathetic to their nostalgia. I can’t IMAGINE someone (well, a stranger I mean, I can see how a relative or someone with a personal ax to grind would do this) going to the trouble to tell me to cherish my children in a passive-aggressive way. What does that do for them? Now, the people who get all up in your face about how “That baby should have on socks!” “Where is that baby’s hat?” etc.? Well, they can just SUCK IT.

I don’t think people intend for it to come across that way. Generally they are simply nostalgic or just looking for something to say. I think that’s how a lot of people take it, though, which is why people should be careful and evaluate the situation to see if the phrase is appropriate, instead of throwing it out every time they see a young mom.

I am never ever ever offended by or angry about people saying such things—though I AM incredulous that they keep saying it when it’s become so widely known that most people don’t like hearing it. I was kind of cheesed when the effect of my first post (not the one you linked to, which was the one where I tried to bring things back to what I meant, but the first one, where people assumed I was offended/angry) was to incite a sort of “YEAH, those people SUCK!!” reaction, because GEEZ. They clearly mean to be making a warm and supportive remark.

I too am in pre-mourning, which is why I dislike being told I’m RIGHT about it. That is, the effect on me of that statement isn’t anger/offense, it’s heartbreak and despair: everything I fear about this stage (that it will be so hard, but then I will miss it and be suffused with regret at not appreciating it while I had it) is TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUE. They’re confirming my WORST FEARS.

I also dislike it because I think it shows obliviousness for them to instruct people to do what experience must have shown them was impossible. They’re telling me to do something I can’t do, which makes me all the more frustrated/upset at my inability.

I think this WHOLE THING could be fixed if the people in question just changed what they were saying to reflect what they ACTUALLY MEANT. Something like, “OH, your babies’ sweet faces make me miss my own grown-up babies!” Or “Oh, I wish I could have bottled some of that time, so I could enjoy it in small doses now! It was too hard to really enjoy it while I was in the middle of it. Aw, the little sweethearts!”

You are absolutely, 100% right. That is exactly what people should say. Thank you so much for putting it like that. That is EXACTLY what I say NOW to my own husband. “Oh I wish I could save a single day from each of their ages so that I could go back and relive some moments here and there in the future.”

I understand what you mean about it confirming your fears. My mom is truly the worst with this. She lays it on SO thick. She tells me over and over again how wonderful I was at age 2. She took me everywhere, she didn’t want to be away from me for a second. She can’t reconcile the adult I am with that 2-year-old child. They are 2 separate people, and she feels like that 2-year-old is lost to her forever. I see the way it pains her, and I do not want to hurt like that. So instead of hoping I never hurt like that, I hurt like that now, in advance, in preparation. It is stupid, BEYOND stupid.

I think it would be amazing if we all agreed to respond to these comments with this sort of spirit. “I know! I wish I could bottle up some of these moments now to save for when they’re grown!” Putting it that way to them might spare someone a few aisles over from hearing the original sentiment.

(Also, I’d like to apologize if I’m being too argumentative. I feel like I’m doing that thing you mentioned where I *think* I’m just showing the other side, but am in fact just being obnoxious.) (And hijacking your comment section to boot.)

I love this. I feel like it’s connected to the conversation we had this weekend about how having a kid makes you realize how quickly time passes. You feel so PRESENT when your baby is a newborn and then suddenly they’re five years old. And then next they’ll be 15, and then 25, and you’ll STILL be feeling like they were just a newborn, and all the days we’re experiencing RIGHT THIS SECOND will have just blended into all the other days we already just see as a big block of memories. And along with our KIDS getting older, WE get older, so I totally see how suddenly you wake up and you’re 80 and your kids are 50 and you still feel like you’re in your twenties and cuddling your first precious newborn. And I feel like THAT is the place that those comments usually come from. All those cherishable moments have just turned into a big block of memories and people are wishing they could be present for them again. And so they want YOU to be present for them instead, since THEY can’t be anymore.

This is exactly how I feel about that post…and everyone else who gets up in arms about the little old ladies. I AM THE ONE little-old-ladying myself all the time. I KNOW that I will look back at this time with the hazy view of hindsight and envy others. And while once in a while I do roll my eyes at such comments made towards me, more often than not I think it’s sweet and it does – in that moment – help me to focus on the good happening around me.

I know exactly what you mean about pre-mourning. When Lizzie was a newborn and going through that phase where she wouldn’t sleep unless I was holding her, I can remember getting so frustrated and feeling like I did nothing but bitch about being trapped in that freaking glider in the nursery ALL THE TIME. Then I’d start feeling guilty because I knew it was all just going to get harder and more complicated and stressful as she got older and I’d miss that time and I felt like I shouldn’t feel frustrated. Every time some well-meaning person told me to “cherish every moment” it felt like I was just failing completely at motherhood because I was clearly not cherishing. I wasn’t mad at them — I knew they weren’t trying to make me feel bad — but that didn’t stop me feeling awful.

A friend of mine suggested that every time I felt that guilt coming on, I should take a picture of whatever it was I was so sure I was going to miss. It worked really well. I felt like I was doing something to cherish those moments that were otherwise going tragically uncherished. And now I have a bunch of pictures of baby Lizzie sleeping that I can look at and smile, without having to really remember that when I took them I was starving, my back was killing me, my arm was asleep, and/or I had to pee so badly I thought my bladder was going to explode but I couldn’t move because then she would wake up and start screaming again.

I really love that idea, Nikki. I am putting that into action IMMEDIATELY. I found the rocking of a baby so monotonous and just awful the first time around. I do hope it will be the same for you as it was for me the second time, because sitting and feeding the baby? It feels almost like a VACATION in comparison to the chasing CONSTANT chasing of a toddler. A VERY SAD VACATION, I MUST ADMIT. As far as comments from people who had many children, I wonder how many of them are remembering their LAST baby and forgetting how much worse it was with their FIRST baby.

“It is so much better to be the one hearing the words ‘cherish every moment’ than the one saying them.”

YES. THIS.

I get the “cherish” advice pretty much every time I go out. I also get all kinds of comments about how my children are beautiful, and how babies are blessings, etcetera, that don’t have advice attached to them. I love the non-advice comments because they’re so easy to answer (yes, my children are wonderful! I agree!) but it’s the advice that touches me and makes me want to hug random strangers (which I would totally do if I didn’t think they’d be alarmed).

Because, just like with rude blog comments, I think the “cherish every moment” advice is not about me, it’s about them. I imagine there’s something about seeing me, with my set of (yes, lovely) children that triggers a part of them that’s wistful or even regretful – about things they’ve lost, things they would’ve done differently. They’re not judging me, they want to be me, so they can have a chance to hold on to the beauty of young childhood, to do it right this time.

And if they are judging me, if they truly are looking at me and thinking, “She’s clearly not appreciating this enough. She’s a bad mom,” then I feel even more sorry for them, for whatever in their lives has been so awful that they’d mentally accuse a (excuse me, totally fabulous) young mother of falling down on the job. Poor people.

I love you, Diane, for your balanced perspective and your charity and all the other awesome things about you. XOXO

Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant with number 5 and my oldests (twins) will be 10 next week, but there is no pre-mourning going on in my house. I get why some people say stuff like “they’ll be grown before you know it” – my twins were born, what seems like yesterday! But I do try to cherish the good stuff – and remember the bad stuff too, so I can hopefully avoid it with the other kids! I think what can bother me is the implication that I’m not cherishing it. Sometimes if I sound exasperated or seem annoyed, it may be because Iam exasperated or annoyed. And that’s ok too. For me, that’s part of the normal, everyday life. I can’t be all sweetness, light and roses. There are days when I have my bad moments – the days when I’m mired down in the remembering of something difficult (like my miscarriage) or the death of my grandmother. Just because I have those moments (and sometimes I have them in the supermarket) doesn’t mean I’m not cherishing. I cherish. I promise.

I would definitely be bothered if I felt someone were implying that I’m NOT cherishing this time, because I really am. Even if I’m not actively cherishing that moment, I know (or hope, at least!) that a better one will come to pass shortly. I have no patience for people implying in ANY WAY that I love my children or life “less” than I am “supposed to”. I can certainly see where that would be grating, and I’m fortunate to be able to say I’ve not faced that particular brand of commenter in the grocery store. Congratulations on your impending arrival!

What bothers me about it is a combination of things. It’s partly that it’s just so *cliche* to say it, like telling a pregnant woman to “sleep while you can!” as though you’re the first person to have given her this piece of wisdom that is not really a piece of wisdom because dude, she *knows* she’s going to be tired later, and it’s not like you can store up sleep.

The other part is what Swistle said, about the fact that people keep saying it even though it’s now well-known that a large contingent of people find it bothersome or even offensive. Though I supposed most of the people saying it (often little old ladies) are probably not online to the point that they would have seen the articles and tweets and blog posts about how annoyed people get by the comment.

When people say it to me, I do genuinely appreciate the sentiment, because I *get* what they’re trying to say, I really do. I just also do an internal eye roll because come on, people, say something original!

HA HA HA “Sleep while you can”! Because you can totally BANK it, right? I will admit to wanting to scream at my brother “ENJOY THAT YOU CAN SLEEP IN ON THE WEEKENDS AS MUCH AS YOU WAAANT!” but … I got my time to sleep in on the weekends! And I didn’t appreciate it, but how could I have? I couldn’t have, so there’s no use in trying to convince anyone now to do so. And that is a good parallel here, because I can no more make these moments last forever than the ladies at the store could when they were me. But I also understand the urge to say it, so that’s why I take it to heart and let them have their moment.

I think “sleep while you can” is the single most rage-inducing thing you can say to a pregnant woman (well, except for the times my MIL called me fat — OH YES SHE DID). The “enjoy every moment” ladies, I’ll give a pass to, because it is a genuinely well-meant sentiment, but the “sleep while you can” people I just want to punch in the mouth.

Thank you for posting what so many of us have thought.
For the record, if there is a record, I never took “cherish every moment” as advice or criticism or as anything negative. Sure, I kind of see how some might take it that way (too literal?) but I agree it is not the way it was intended. I’m far from the baby years and when I see a baby I remember mostly the good parts — they all scroll across my mind in seconds — and no matter what I say to the mom, it will come out negatively. If I say “I loved the baby years” they’ll feel guilty if they don’t. If I say “I remember those years fondly” they’ll have a hard time finding anything about their crazy day to want to remember. I get it. Really, maybe we should all just smile and keep our thoughts to ourselves.
As for the little old ladies who “still” say this… many don’t go online to blogs to know the discussions this has created. My mom can barely send an email. And yes, she says stuff like this to every young mom every time she’s in a store or at church or where ever. She sees it as a way to bond with another generation (kind of like saying, “hey, I’ve been there”) and she will never stop no matter how often we beg of her to.